Sanctuary
by katdvs
Summary: It's always some blonde with this dark side, waiting for you to love her back.


_**Author Note: This was a request from Holly.**_

* * *

 **Sanctuary**

 _A man's heart may have a secret sanctuary where only one woman may enter, but it is full of little anterooms which are seldom vacant.  
Helen Rowland_

Jughead could remember the day he broke his own heart and let her go. He knew she would bounce back, she would find the love she always wanted, the one she'd secretly yearned for during their time together.

He could remember the day he saw them together, senior year of high school, prom was just weeks away. They were by her locker, her fingers fixing something on his letter jacket, a hopeful smile on her lips, the twinkle in his eye before he quickly gave her a peck on the lips and then looked to see if anyone noticed.

"Jughead" his eyes clouded with guilt when he saw him.

Jughead gave Archie a smile telling him it was okay.

This was how things were meant to be.

Through the rest of the year he ignored the pain in his own heart.

Betty had what she always wanted—Archie.

Jughead had tasted the sweet comfort of sanctuary with Betty, but let her leave, made her leave because he knew he could never give her what she wanted, what she needed.

Veronica had left for Europe the day after they graduated high school, Jughead couldn't lie he saw a sadness embrace his best friend that could only be explained by her absence. No matter how happy he seemed to be with the girl next door, a piece of him was missing.

Betty left for college first, something was different about Archie while she was gone—almost as though he was relieved.

Archie and Jughead left the same day, going in different directions. Technology convinced them they would still be close, but he knew the truth, they would drift apart quickly, ghosts of the past.

They did.

He spent the next four years in the library, or smoking outside looking out at the town below his college campus. Telling himself this new town held just as many secrets, maybe more than Riverdale had.

He wrote, somehow, she was always in his prose. Jughead hadn't even noticed it until his critique partner called him out on it senior year as they worked on their final projects.

 _It's always some blonde with this dark side, waiting for you to love her back._

He moved to New York, became the assistant for a literary agent, his days sorting through the endless queries that came and making notes of who received what form email in reply. His nights were spent working on his own manuscript, changing names, creating sensationalized versions of what had really happened, sending off his own query letters, anticipating his own flood of rejection emails.

He got an agent, and a few months later he got a publishing deal.

The only person he wanted to call, even now, all these years later, was her.

He hated that he stalked her Facebook page, discovering she had moved to Washington DC, worked for a senator in his press office.

He couldn't bring himself to message her.

Not even when he saw the announcement from Archie and Veronica that they were engaged.

The day he received the box of copies of his book, he sat on the floor of his apartment, studying the cover. Lost in the retro American teen aesthetic used for the cover.

He looked at the dedication page, biting his lip as reality crashed over him that this was real.

 _For Betty, my sanctuary._

He picked up a sharpie and scribbled a note on the page.

 _I love you, I always have, I always will, yesterday, last year, the last decade, and every day here after.  
Jughead_

He grabbed a padded envelope, addressing it to Betty Cooper at an address he'd long since memorized, taking this moment of courage as he printed out the postage, and ran outside to drop it in the outgoing mail box.

A week had passed, and then a second. The book was released, he'd done some press, uncomfortable the entire time. He was sent on a tour, he had no idea where he was on a given day, everything blended together.

Until he saw her.

She wore a dark pink lipstick, a black suit, her lips tight, her eyes angry, her hair still in a ponytail.

It was the hotel lobby, he was on his way to the bar, ready to forget the day with a bourbon. He could feel her gaze as he turned to her.

She held the book against her chest, the way she'd carried her text books in high school.

He couldn't avoid her.

They walked towards each other, the first time they saw each other in person since she left Riverdale. "Hello Betty."

She looked down at the book in her hands before looking up at him, "If this is true, what you wrote; why did you break up with me?"

She'd gone right for the jugular, hadn't she? "I knew that while I had these feelings for you, that I still do, and always will, you had feelings for Archie, and I didn't want to hold you back from who you really wanted."

Betty's eyes dropped as she listened to him, she leaned in close taking in the familiar scent of his soap, "You were my sanctuary Jughead, you and you alone." Her lips briefly danced over his before she left, disappearing into the crowd before Jughead had time to realize it had all been real.

The next and final time he saw her would be for Archie and Veronica's wedding, a splashy affair that made Cheryl Blossom green with envy—for she wanted the attention, the party, and the groom. By that time Betty had returned to Riverdale, and now wore a diamond engagement ring that Reggie had given her.

After the wedding Jughead returned to New York, where he wrote ten more books, taught writing, and eventually he met a woman who put a smile on his face, and never gave him reason or suspicion that her heart belonged to another.


End file.
